9 Amazing WordPress blog themes you MUST try today (2018)

Power up your new site with our selection of best WP blogging templates

WordPress, of course, is used for all types of websites - one of its main reasons has always been to create a blog. If you want to create a site which makes a hit though, you'll need to make sure your selection out of all the WordPress blog themes available is spot on. Using a default design, or one which is not visually appealing, or does not offer certain functionality and features for your readers will create a bit of a barrier to your readers. We've done a lot of research to find some of the best WordPress blog themes you can use to power your brand new (or old ;)) site.

Premium blog themes vs Free blogging templates

We are of the very strong opinion of the "You get what you pay for" mantra. A free theme may sound great, but cheap may become expensive in the long run. Let's see a few reasons why you should always opt for premium WordPress blog themes.

After you've worked hard on your blog idea, brainstormed a few good blog names, and finally settled on one you like, it's time to do it justice by finding an appropriate them for it.

Nulled scripts - many of the free WordPress themes have been maliciously tweaked to insert scripts which allow them to be remotely controlled. This would then allow a hacker to takeover your site and use it for malicious purposes.

Updates - it is very common for templates to have bugs which may lead to your website becoming compromised. Free products are typically not kept up to date, and your site can eventually get hacked through vulnerabilities.

Support - when you don't have a strong company supporting the template you choose, when you are stuck you might need to actually hire a WordPress developer. This will obviously cost you much more than going for a premium theme in the first place.

ElegantThemes is one of the most popular premium WordPress theme providers. They have long established themselves as the people to go to when you're looking at the latest and greatest products. Together with Divi, their best selling item (incidentally, click here to see our Divi Review), they've got a whole category of WordPress blog templates.

Here's a short preview of all of the options which are available at ElegantThemes.

One of our favourite designs for a WP blog is Brixton - News from the City. Very trendy, very hipster - you'll love this template with a very elegant and clean design. It is a very good choice for any personal blog, no slideshows or animations, just straight to the point with information presentation cleanly and minimally.

Social media is covered with widgets as necessary!

Besides the awesomeness of this blogging template, you also get the PSD files, so that you can do any changes you want. A recent update of the product has included font-awesome icons. The logo is also available for free for you to use in any way you would like.

3. Hoarder - No longer available

Hoarder is a grid-based design with support for all types of content. The name "Hoarder" is a play on the style of the design - you can hoard as many items as you want on the front page!

Essentially, it is a whole grid of 'featured' articles - which link to the actual item itself. So you can "promote" each item on the front page, allowing your front page to be a whole display board of your best items.

Of course, it's responsive design - so you don't have to worry about the articles not looking good on different devices.Various post forms are supported so you can post on your blog video, audio, images, galleries and of course good old standard posts.

It's also built on the Zilla framework, so if Zilla is your thing, you can definitely get the right fit from this WordPress blogging theme.

This is another one we absolutely love! There's something about simplicity that makes it the ultimate sophistication!

Whilst Hemlock above has a girly feel - Blogoma has very techy feel and is a perfect choice for something such as Tech, Gadget, Sports, Watches, Cars or other technology blog, or other manly or geeky stuff :)

Of course, the product is very adaptable to many uses, so don't limit yourself to what we're saying and have a look at the LIVE PREVIEW right now.

When it comes to WP blogging templates, Blogoma is as simple as it can get - but we love it for that.

John Doe's Blog - just like its name is a simple, clean and modern template for blogging which is ideal for sharing your personal stories. It's of courses responsive. It's got many features which won't bloat your installation.

The powerful and friendly admin panel is focused towards user-friendliness, rather than other bulky products, where the newbie blogger might get a little bit lost. The product is also social media ready, so you'll be able to integrate Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Pinterest profiles with your website from the get-go.

It also had Fontello integrated, so you've got literally over a thousand icons to choose from to use with this design. There are also 6 blogging layouts, and 15 custom page templates which you can "style" your pages with the essential stuff like galleries, contact us pages, filterable blogs and full-width pages.

But enough descriptions - maybe it's better to just see for yourself in the LIVE DEMO ?

With its utmost flexibility, this is definitely another of our favourite WordPress blogging templates.

The great thing about the internet is that whatever your style, you're going to find something that fits you. So we've just mentioned technology and sophistication in our previous two spotlights. Our next personal theme goes VINTAGE.

If you love a retro style, Retro Portfolio is a one-page vintage WP theme. It has just been released as a responsive design...something which happened only quite recently!

Let's see some of the features of this product

Fully Responsive

Retina integration for logo and banner

Can easily add, remove and rearrange sections in the homepage

can easily change the colour of any single section, page or blog post thanks to the introduction of a new color picker

Google Fonts integration

New icons

New responsive slider

Portfolio gallery

Anti-spam filter on the contact form

More CSS, less images

Completely Translatable

Updates Notifier

Detailed Documentation

If you've been on the lookout for a WP blog theme which stands out, your search can stop with Retro.

Another really neat and stylish personal blogging theme is Elantra. It's simple but elegant design makes a very good choice for a personal blogger, and it's powered by Bootstrap 3 - so responsiveness is built-in to the template. It is an absolutely good choice for those wanting to create a travel, hobby, cooking or fashion site. All images are displayed via Magnific Popop Window, so they literally jump out of the (browser) window when you click them :)

This is also great if you're looking for WordPress fashion blog themes.

Period is a modern and fresh blogging template. Built with a content first design approach, it puts the emphasis on your writing and images. The template displays beautifully on all devices from phones to widescreen monitors, and everything in between. It’s a great fit for personal and business articles, and could even suit a photography or portfolio site well.

So what do you think of our choices of WordPress blog themes? Can you make better recommendations?

One more thing... Did you know that people who share useful stuff like this post look AWESOME too? ;-) Please leave a useful comment with your thoughts, then share this on your Facebook group(s) who would find this useful and let's reap the benefits together. Thank you for sharing and being nice!

The Outstanding HungryJPEG Bundles

Advertise on CollectiveRay.com

CollectiveRay (formerly known as DART Creations) is interested in developing partnerships with mutual benefit. If you like the stuff we publish and would like to develop a relationship, we'd be happy to hear from you. Go on - drop us a line - we'd love to hear from you :-)

Disclosure: CollectiveRay is funded personally out of pure passion for helping people working with websites. We do however generate some income through recommendations of products. This means if you click on a link and purchase an item we link to, we will receive a small sum out of that sale. We usually partner with vendors to make your purchase cheaper than buying direct.

who are we?

CollectiveRay is run by David Attard - working in and around the web design niche for more than 12 years, we provide actionable tips for people who work with and on websites. We also run DronesBuy.net - a website for drone hobbyists.